Unpivoting columns in Power BI - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

Sales data for products over three months (Jan, Feb, Mar). Columns B, C, D represent monthly sales.

Cell	Value
A1	Product
B1	Jan
C1	Feb
D1	Mar
A2	Apples
B2	30
C2	40
D2	50
A3	Bananas
B3	20
C3	25
D3	30

Formula Trace

Unpivot columns Jan, Feb, Mar into attribute-value pairs

Step 1: Select columns Jan, Feb, Mar to unpivot

Step 2: For each row, create new rows for each selected column with attribute and value

Step 3: Resulting table columns: Product, Attribute (Month), Value (Sales)

Cell Reference Map

    A       B       C       D  
1 Product   Jan     Feb     Mar
2 Apples    30      40      50 
3 Bananas   20      25      30 

Original table with Product names in column A and monthly sales in columns B, C, D which are unpivoted.

Result

    A       B         C  
1 Product  Month    Sales
2 Apples   Jan      30  
3 Apples   Feb      40  
4 Apples   Mar      50  
5 Bananas  Jan      20  
6 Bananas  Feb      25  
7 Bananas  Mar      30  

Unpivoted table showing each product with month and corresponding sales as separate rows.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does unpivoting do to the columns Jan, Feb, and Mar?

A Deletes these columns

B Duplicates the columns

C Converts them into rows with month names and sales values

D Summarizes sales by product

Key Result

Unpivot transforms selected columns into attribute-value pairs, creating one row per original row per selected column.